If Hewlett-Packard were to remain as one company, Whitman said she would expect it to grow. She said HP is on track to complete its separation of its legacy computer and printer business and its enterprise segments, which include cloud technology and servers.

Whitman told CNBC its server business, which grew 9 percent in constant currency, was perhaps its biggest turnaround story in the last few years.

Data storage has also been a winning segment for HP, she said, but the first quarter was not a good period for its networking business.

She blamed "execution issues" in the United States and China for the networking weakness. HP has changed out its China leadership team and will make changes to U.S. sales force incentives, she said.